By Nicholas Kotch

KISMAYO, Somalia, April 5 (Reuter) - A top European official

was caught up in two ugly shooting incidents in southeast

Somalia on Friday as clan fighting raged in the capital with at

least 75 reported dead.

Emma Bonino, the European commissioner for humanitarian

affairs, had a nasty taste of Somalia's anarchy on her first

visit to the country when she flew to the port of Kismayo.

Bonino's convoy was twice forced to stop when militia

escorts opened fire against a smaller rival group. There were no

confirmed casualties and the Italian politician and her party

made a top-speed take-off from Kismayo aboard a Belgian air

force C-130 transport plane.

"I wouldn't say I was really scared. What scared me most was

the confusion," Bonino told reporters travelling with her.

In the capital intra-clan warfare, which erupted suddenly on

Thursday and continued on Friday, took a heavy toll.

Witnesses said at least 40 militiamen and 35 civilians were

killed in the worst fighting in the devastated city for many

months. Somalia has had no government since 1991.

The southern Mogadishu battles between forces of former

allies Mohamed Farah Aideed and Osman Ali Hassan Atto sent

families fleeing to other parts of the capital.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said 248

wounded people had been admitted to Mogadishu's three main

hospitals.

"In some zones of this country no-one is in charge," Bonino

said after her hairy time in Kismayo.

She began the two-day visit to Somalia on Thursday to review

relief efforts funded by the European Union. The trip hit its

first snag when she was unable to visit Aideed's bastion in

south Mogadishu.

Aideed declared himself president of Somalia last June and

tries to insist that foreigners fly into the south of the city,

not the more peaceful north controlled by Ali Mahdi Mohamed.

Bonino had talks with Mahdi, as the fighting in the southern

sector began on Thursday. With Aideed apparently in the

provincial town of Baidoa, over which he has a tenuous control,

his Mogadishu lieutenants refused to obey his written order to

allow Bonino to visit south Mogadishu.

"What is quite clear is that some people in the Aideed group

are not following Aideed's instructions," she told reporters on

Friday before flying back to safety in Kenya.

Judging by Friday's events in Kismayo, local boss General

Morgan has a similar authority problem to Aideed's.

After an orderly welcome at the airport things went badly

wrong along the dusty track into town.

The convoy stopped suddenly when Bonino's lead car had a

puncture. Automatic weapons fire broke out and militiamen,

European Union officials and journalists had no idea why.

Morgan, a black-bearded warlord with grenades dangling at

his waist, strode into action as shooting continued.

One of Aideed's "vice-presidents", Mohamed Haji Aden,

appeared to have provoked the drama by infiltrating at least one

vehicle into Bonino's convoy.

Morgan said later that Aden's nomination by Aideed last

August was not recognised in Kismayo but Aden was allowed to

remain in his home town "as an ordinary citizen".

Morgan apologised to Bonino for "the accident" and accused

Aideed of ordering the incident to spoil the highest-level visit

to Somalia since U.N. troops pulled out in March last year..

"You can say when you go back that the people of Kismayo

welcomed you with some music," he joked, trying to make light of

an incident which challenged his claim to run Kismayo.

Morgan's assurances of a safe return to the airport looked

worthless when the convoy came to an abrupt halt and more

shooting began. Aden's outnumbered men had blocked the airport

entrance with a "technical" battlewagon and intimidatory firing

by Morgan's forces was needed to clear them..

Bonino and her officials, now wearing flak-jackets, rushed

aboard the C-130 Hercules and took off.

In Mogadishu a spokesman for Atto's forces said his men

destroyed four of Aideed's "technicals", four-wheel-drive

vehicles bristling with weapons.

A spokesman for Aideed declined to comment on the violence.

Witnesses said mortars, anti-tank rockets and recoilless

rifles were used in the street battles.

Aideed and his former financier Atto split in March last

year but as members of the same sub-clan of the Habr Gedir clan

they previously refrained from full-scale attacks on each other.

Clan elders negotiated between both sides on Thursday but no

new peace talks were possible on Friday because of fighting.

The former U.S. embassy at the centre of Thursday's clashes

was the headquarters for U.N. peacekeepers who quit Somali a

year ago and is a few blocks from Atto's heavily-guarded home.

REUTER